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Indigenous Business & Public Administration

Policies

Contents

Editorial Policies

All submissions are initially assessed by an Editor, who decides whether or not the article is suitable for peer review. Submissions considered suitable for peer review are assigned to two or more subject experts, who assess the article for clarity, validity, and sound methodology. If suitable experts external to the journal cannot be found then members of the Editorial Board may be asked to complete a review task.

The journal operates a double-blind peer review process, meaning that authors and reviewers remain anonymous for the review process. The review period is expected to take around six to eight weeks, although this can vary depending on reviewer availability. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.

Based on the reviewer reports the editor will make a recommendation for rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s Editor, who is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Members of the editorial team/board are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review. A competing interest must also be declared within the submission and any resulting publication.

The journal is happy to accept submissions of papers that have been loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, have been presented at conferences, or other informal communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior publication. Authors must retain copyright to such postings. Authors are encouraged to link any prior posting of their paper to the final published version within the journal, if it is editorially accepted.

Preprint Policy

The journal allows authors to deposit draft versions of their paper into a suitable preprint server, on condition that the author agrees to the below:

  • The author retains copyright to the preprint and developed works from it, and is permitted to submit to the journal.
  • The author declares that a preprint is available within the cover letter presented during submission. This must include a link to the location of the preprint.
  • The author acknowledges that having a preprint publicly available means that the journal cannot guarantee the anonymity of the author during the review process, even if they anonymise the submitted files (see review policy).

Should the submission be published, the authors are expected to update the information associated with the preprint version to show that a final version has been published in the journal, including the DOI linking directly to the publication.

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ORCID

The journal strongly recommends that all authors submitting a paper register an account with Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID). Registration provides a unique and persistent digital identifier for the account that enables accurate attribution and improves the discoverability of published articles, ensuring that the correct author receives the correct credit for their work. As the ORCID remains the same throughout the lifetime of the account, changes of name, affiliation, or research area do not effect the discoverability of an author's past work and aid correspondence with colleagues.

The journal encourages all corresponding authors to include an ORCID within their submitting author data whilst co-authors are recommended to include one. ORCID numbers should be added to the author data upon submission and will be published alongside the submitted article, should it be accepted.

Open Access

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There is no embargo on the journal’s publications. Submission and acceptance dates, along with publication dates, are made available on the PDF format for each paper.

Authors of articles published remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons license agreement.

Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories. For a list of generic and subject-specific repositories that meet our peer review criteria, see here.

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Open Data

The journal strongly encourages authors to make all data associated with their submission openly available, according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). This should be linked to from a Data Accessibility Statement within the submitted paper, which will be made public upon publication. If data is not being made available with the journal publication, a statement from the author should be provided to explain why. Data obtained from other sources must be appropriately credited. All data should be curated in a format that allows easy understanding and analysis (e.g. sensible column headers, descriptions in a readme text file). This help will ensure its reuse potential.

Reproducibility and Open Data

The provision of data should, ideally, include data required for reproducing Figures as a stand-alone product. All submitted data should be curated in a format that allows easy understanding and analysis of the data (e.g. sensible column headers, descriptions in a readme text file). This help will ensure its reuse potential. Data should be cited and referenced within the manuscript and should be linked to from a Data Accessibility Statement, which must describe how the data underlying the findings of the article can be accessed and reused. If data is not being made available with the journal publication (e.g. legal constraints), a statement from the author should be provided to explain why. Data obtained from other sources must be appropriately credited.

Repositories should be selected based on their suitability for the subject area/data being deposited and must provide persistent identifiers for the data (e.g. DOI). Data deposited in a repository has many advantages over data files being hosted by the journal. The journal is able to host supplementary data files; authors may also choose to deposit data in a suitable open data repository. There are many subject-specific or generic repositories now available. If you do not know of a suitable data repositories, authors may use the following links to identify one: https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org/ and http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Data_repositories.

When depositing data for a submission, the below should be considered:

  • The repository the data is deposited in must be suitable for this subject and have a sustainability model.
  • The data must be deposited under an open license that permits unrestricted access (e.g. CC0, CC-BY). More restrictive licenses should only be used if a valid reason (e.g. legal) is present.
  • The deposited data must include a version that is in an open, non-proprietary format.
  • The deposited data must have been labelled in such a way that a 3rd party can make sense of it (e.g. sensible column headers, descriptions in a readme text file).
  • Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, the studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. The identity of the research subject must be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian).
  • A ‘Data Accessibility Statement’ should be added to the submission, prior to the reference list, providing the details of the data accessibility, including the DOI linking to it. If the data is restricted in any way, the reasoning should be given.

Open Code

If research includes code, statistical analyses, or algorithms, we recommend that authors upload a working instance of their code and data to Code Ocean. Code Ocean is an online computational reproducibility platform that provides researchers with an easy way to share, validate, and discover code published in academic journals. Code Ocean will mint a DOI for the submitted code, thereby allowing for attribution and citation tracking.

The platform provides free and open access for users to view and download published code, data, metadata, and computational environments. Upon registration, readers can execute all published code online, without needing to install anything, making the reproduction of results simple and painless.

Upload your code to Code Ocean using the following steps:

  • Sign up/login to Code Ocean
  • Upload and submit the code and data associated with your article.
  • Configure your environment, run your code and submit.
  • Code Ocean will verify the code is operational and help with any issues

Your executable code will be published on Code Ocean. It will be assigned a unique URL you can share, as well as a DOI that can be used to cite it. Add the DOI that has been provided into your journal submission so that there is a direct link for the editors, reviewers, and readers to access.

Structured Methods

As the traditional Materials and Methods section often includes insufficient detail for readers to wholly assess the research process, the journal encourages authors to publish detailed descriptions of their structured methods in open, online platforms such as protocols.io. By providing a step-by-step description of the methods used in the study, the chance of reproducibility and usability increases, whilst also allowing authors to build on their own works and gain additional credit and citations.

Reproducibility and Structured Methods

Publishing the details of research processes allows the methods to evolve over time but retains a static version that is attached to published research output. Submissions can include images and videos and include the functionality to converse with other researchers who may wish to comment on the methods provided. Protocols.io also allows the complete, step-by-step methodology to be cited, providing researchers with an easy route to finding the information they need whilst crediting the author each time it is used. We believe that publishing such structured methods increases the value, impact and transparency of the research, as well as contributing to Open Science as a whole.

Although the term protocol is more commonly used in clinical research the benefits that protocols.io provides is equally applicable to any structured methods section, across all disciplines. Publication of the methods in protocols.io releases the information under a CC-BY licence. The choice of whether to make the methods public prior to publication is entirely up to the author (see below). It is also completely free to use.

The protocol/methods site can very easily be setup and incorporated into a manuscript that is being prepared for submission. To publish your methods on protocols.io, simply:

  • Register at protocols.io and create your protocol
  • Select ‘Get DOI’ on the protocols.io menu tab
  • Include the DOI in the Methods section of your manuscript, for example https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.[protocol number].

Editors and reviewers will be able to see your protocol with this DOI, but it will not be publicly visible unless you opt to make it open. If your article is published, this referenced link will automatically make your protocol publicly available, enabling readers to view your detailed methods.

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